Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/134

This page has been validated.
126
INDIAN THOROUGHFARES

wardly on its course to Detroit. It passed through the old Baptist burying-ground one-half mile south of Wooster and crossed the Kilbuck north of the bridge on the Ashland road. Turning west it coursed near the present village of Reedsburg to the well-known Indian town "Mohican John's Town" and thence northwest near Castalia in Erie county to Fort Sandusky on Sandusky river.

When visiting at the historic village of Gnadenhutten during the centennial celebration of 1898, I endeavored to locate the Muskingum trail which passed through this region. From no one could I gain any clew, until when in conversation with the venerable Bishop Van Vleck of the Moravian Church I brought up the matter of early highways. The bishop at once recalled a remark made by a parishioner who told him that when coming to church he followed an old roadway in order to make a short cut. On this clew I started and reaching, by the common highway, the range of hills beyond the Tuscarawas, I found there the plainest pathway on the heights. Following the old course, I was